 By now, I am sure that you've heard of the nonsensical criticism that we've seen from centrist Democrats, third-away Democrats like Abigail Spanberger, who claim that the reason why Democrats underperformed polls is because the left, supporting policies like Medicare for All and Defund the Police, that hurt other Democrats. Now it's interesting to me because Democrats who support Medicare for All, even in red districts who were incumbents, they won their races. It's only the more centrist Democrats in these swing districts who had a more difficult time winning re-election. So what she's saying is absurd and it's demonstrably untrue. And thankfully someone who is going to be going to Congress very soon, Jamal Bowman, was asked to respond to her comments and he shot them down and what he said was phenomenal. I want you to listen here. One of your new colleagues will be Abigail Spanberger. She's a moderate and a centrist from a district that President Trump had carried before. She won re-election, but a couple of her centrist friends lost and she's not happy and she claims progressives. Listen. Not only did we not win the Senate, but we lost House seats that we shouldn't have lost in my opinion. Great members who were focused on the issues that matter to people and had voted on issues that mattered to people. And what I expressed to my colleagues is this is a place where we need to do an after-action report about how we thought what would happen was so different from in fact what did happen. She says one of the problems is Democrats who push for defunding police. One of the problems is Democrats who identify as Democratic socialists. Do you agree? I disagree. You have to run your race in your district in response to the needs of the people in your district. And if you're responding to their needs and if you're building relationships and making connections and doing everything you have to do, then you should be able to win your race. This is about deep authentic relationships. This is about transformational politics. And I disagree that someone running on a different platform hundreds of miles away is going to impact what happens in a particular race. So I disagree. I agree with the need to do a thorough analysis into why certain candidates won in particular districts and why others did not win. I think that's very important for us to become a data-driven Democratic Party. But I disagree with the notion that it's the fault of progressives, especially when you look at how much progressives organized across the country to help Joe Biden win. And I think you will organize to make sure we win the two Democratic Senate seats in Georgia. And so those two Democratic seats, the two seats in Georgia will decide which party controls the Senate. We're a little TBD on that one. But in any event, it'll be narrowly divided. You've lost a little bit on the House majority. You will be a new member. And again, congratulations. But Nancy Pelosi, if she's a re-elected speaker, which we assume, will have a smaller majority. So when Joe Biden meets with you all in January and says, look, thank you, number one, we share goals, but we have to trim our sales a little bit. We can't sell Medicare for all. He wasn't for it anyway. We're going to try to do a modest build on Obamacare. We can't do as much as you would like to do as fast as you would like to do it on climate change. We have to trim our sales there. Are you going to say I get the math? Are you going to say no, Mr. President? You won. Push it. Be bolder. Well, we've already been pushing throughout the Biden campaign. I mean, it was a Biden-Sanders coalition that made climate change a central focus of the Biden campaign. There was a Biden-Sanders coalition that made racial equity a focus. And President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris focused on universal child care and early childhood education. So we have already begun to work in collaboration with the White House to make sure our progressive policies are on the agenda, and we will continue to work in collaboration with the White House and our colleagues in Congress. We have to. That is our mandate from the American people. The American people support Medicare for all in overwhelming numbers. The American people support a reallocation of resources from how we look at public safety now, which is additional police, to how we should look at public safety, which is food security, housing security, job programs, and fully funding education. So we're going to continue to have these conversations around the Thanksgiving table, as you mentioned, because we have to be responsive to the American people and the American people who came out for Joe Biden and pushed him over the top in Detroit, in Philadelphia, in Milwaukee, and Atlanta. These are majority urban centers of color. They came out and helped Joe Biden win his election. So we have to be responsive to that. That's great. And I'm really excited to see what he does in Congress. I don't agree with him on everything. I think when it comes to Israel-Palestine, I mean, we're going to have to push him on that issue. Most issues, economic issues, when it comes to health care, he's a progressive, and I think that he is going to be impressive there. It's just a matter of whether or not he'll challenge party leadership. But he basically rejects this premise that left us are to blame because to accept that notion, to accept what Abigail Spanberger is saying, you know, what someone does in one district has to have an impact on another district. For her to accept that, she has to accept previous attacks on centrist Democrats that Republicans have used, like Nancy Pelosi. Not even former attacks this cycle. Republicans attacked Nancy Pelosi for being an out-of-touch coastal elite with two $12,000 refrigerators. Why is it that that attack didn't help sink centrists, but the left and them pushing for very popular policies like Medicare for All did sink centrists? Like the logic doesn't make sense. It's like she's cherry picking what hurt Democrats in a way that helps to validate her third-way centrist narrative, and Jamal Bowman did not fall for it, which is great. He also says, you know, he's going to work with the Biden administration. I expect him to do that. You have to. But the goal is you don't sacrifice your principles in working with Joe Biden under the guise of compromise, because you can't roll over and die. And he basically made it clear he's not going to back down when it comes to Medicare for All and defund the police. Because guess what? These issues, they're not just health care issues and criminal justice issues. Medicare for All is a racial justice issue. It's an LGBTQ plus issue. Defund the police is an economic issue. These are all interrelated issues. And you can't just abandon the people who helped you get elected, people of color, because you think that these policies are like too bold or too out there. No, that's not the way that it works. Like if you want to lose elections, then sure, go ahead and move further away from these policies. But I don't think that Republican should be emboldened as far right as they are. So you can't just run away from these policies. It was people of color, native communities in Arizona who helped get Joe Biden across the finish line. So the Democratic Party can't just say, oh, well, you know what? For these races that were in swing districts, it was the left at law. So we can, we have to abandon them. What victories you had were secured because of people of color. So you don't just abandon them after the election. Now, unfortunately, that's what the Democratic Party has been doing. So you can't do that. And people like Jamal Bowman are saying the right thing that, no, you have to deliver for these communities, deliver for these communities. Otherwise, you're going to keep losing. So I mean, it's nice to have another voice in Congress saying common sense things like this. And I hope that most people don't take what Abigail Spanberger says seriously because this is a corporate backed, third-way Democrat who would rather probably be an opposition candidate because, you know, she doesn't want to deliver if Democrats had control of all branches of government. Individuals like Jim Clyburn and Abigail Spanberger, they would actually have to deliver. And they know that their policies aren't popular. And they know that they actually want to appease the base. They would have to pass policies like Medicare for All. But then that's going to conflict with what their corporate donors want. Their health industry donors don't want progressive policies like Medicare for All. Their private prison industry donors don't want them to end private prisons and defund the police. So they pretend as if their strategy is actually the more electorally viable strategy. And they pass it off as them just being more savvy than us in the mainstream media when in actuality, if you look at how well progressives fared in this race, every incumbent progressive won their election. So I think that, you know, what they're saying is demonstrably untrue. And the quicker we get more voices like Jamal Bowman in Congress, the better off we will all be.